iPREP HAPPENINGS

FIU’s Wolfsonian Museum, located in South Beach on Washington Avenue and 10th Street, is filled with a variety of great murals, artifacts, and paintings. Every year, Ms. Keller and Ms. Gelber take the Junior class in order to experience the museum and complete a zine project. Zines are a variation of magazines that is a small production, usually locally produced, which focuses on a issue rather than certain fads or trends. The Wolfsonian instituted the “Zines for Progress” program through a grant from Wells Fargo where students in both middle and high school throughout Miami-Dade interact with social activism using their critical thinking, creative art and writing skills.” When visiting the Wolfsonian, the juniors’ focus was to learn more about the production of a zine from the museum experts and artists, and we were assigned to find certain paintings, murals, or artifacts that can be used in their zines about their specific issue.The Wolfsonian Museum has been open since 1995, and it became a part of Florida International University (FIU) in 1997. Today it continues to be an iconic landmark of South Miami Beach’s Architectural District. A museum of the arts, the Wolfsonian: “The Wolfsonian's collection—among the largest university art collections in the country—focuses on North American and European decorative arts, propaganda, architecture, and industrial and graphic design dating from 1850 to 1950.” The sixth floor which features a special exhibit is now running from October 2017 to April 2018 about the graphic artist, Julian Klinger, in an exhibit: Posters for a Modern Age.Because our bus arrives in South Beach earlier than the 10 AM museum opening, our teachers took us to Lummus Park on Ocean Drive by the Museum; the juniors had some fun playing in a playground and taking a class picture.Split into 2 groups, some went to the Wolfsonian library while others explored the permanent collection on the fifth floor. In the Wolfsonian’s library, Chief Librarian Frank Luca chose magazines, books, and zines from the past decade to explain how each zine may connect with each student’s topic. He also spent time explaining different types of materials and information used to create the books/zines and gave much information about the craftsmanship of bookbinding. Luca’s detailed explanations gave the students ideas for multiple different ways that old books and zines were bound based on the time and material they used. ​The juniors were all on a mission, their objective: find an artifact that has to do with the topic of their Zine. With this objective in mind, the juniors were all keen to learn about the artifacts presented and open to see what they could use for their projects.

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Bianca Vucetich

​As some might speculate based on my usual attire I am a major Doctor Who fan and absolutely adore the show among many others. I also love using my time to hang out with friends or volunteering at a pet adoption center since the animals there are just wonderful. Well that's just a couple things about me, I hope you find my work helpful and entertaining!